


for your own good

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abuse, Birth, Broken Bones, Captivity, Consensual Pregnancy, Declawing, Euthanasia, Forced Abortion, Genocide, Murder, Mutilation, Neko/Inu, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Other, Pregnancy, as happy of an ending as it could be, but hey its me, but like... fucked up medical research too because Nekos are considered 'less than', devocalisation, fucked up stuff, removing teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: a month after erwin successfully traps a feral neko, mike has luck trapping the one hanging around his house, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> really no idea where i'm going, there's a potential to update and it will probably be disgusting in the future.
> 
> this fic will remain 'locked' to registered users only.

Mike sheds his coat and shoes in the entryway, removing most of the outside world’s smells. He washes his hands in the kitchen and then empties out the bag of treats and goodies he went to purchase, using a gentle scent remover and steriliser on them, making sure to rub the collar along his wrists. He opens the box of biscuits and takes two, hoping they're tempting enough to lure her out willingly. It's been two days, she hasn't left the room he put her in that first day after he found her in his trap, took her to the veterinarian to assess her health, and brought her home. He can hear forceful purring when he comes to the door of the bathroom. Unlocking it from the outside, Mike opens the door all the way, opening up the neko’s temporary sanctuary to the rest of his home. 

 

The neko is huddling in the small space between the toilet and the bathtub, her delicate hands in her white-blonde hair, her gradient more apparent there. Her black nails taper into sharp points, fingers black as well, only fading to grey at her wrists, then blending into pink flesh halfway down her forearms. The same gradient is present in her toes and calves, and he can see that her striped tail is between her legs and tucked against her chest. 

 

“Hey, girl,” he coos. Her ears twitch and he allows himself the hopeful wagging of his tail. She's listening through her attempts to self-soothe; even though her instincts are warning her of Mike’s danger to her as a hound, she’s listening to him. “Hey, girl. Want a treat?”

 

He holds out the biscuit for her to see, and slowly, she raises her head until her eyes comes into view, the elliptical pupils adjusting to the light. She makes no move to reach out to him, so he sets it on the top of her knee. Her tail bristles in defensive posturing when he invades her personal space, and that fact that he's made no progress yet is what pushes him. 

 

Hounds lose their scruffing reflex once they're no longer pups, but he knows nekos retain it, so he grabs her neck in a big fist. Unbidden, her body curls tight and tense, so he holds it until her fear pushes her into tonic immobility, and then he pulls her out of her hiding space. It's a cruel violation, and he must go through with claiming her now because she won't trust him ever again unless he forces her body to accept him. 

 

“You'll feel like you're at home when you smell like me,” Mike tells her. He bends over her body and lines up his teeth with the gland along her throat. He'll claim her now before mating her, because he could otherwise be waiting a dozen years for her to want his mark. With his bite, she cries out, the mating reflex overriding the immobility, causing her to slump limply below him. The air fills with her fear and stress and panic and silence. 

 

Mike laps his tongue over the punctures until the bleeding stops, and then he fastens the collar around her neck, another mark of ownership, another way to assert his dominance over her. Her pupils have blown wide, her biology pushing away her conscious thoughts as her body allows his claim to solidify. He takes her wrists next, sinking his teeth into the glands there, his saliva doing the work to change the scent she produces. He raises her arms to bite the tender skin beside her breasts, then her inner thighs, and lastly below the medial malleolus. Already, she's bruising from the pressure needed to break the skin. 

 

“One more,” Mike croons, pleased with the way she whimpers back. He rolls her onto her belly and smooths his hand down her dark spine, rubbing gently at the dimples in her lower back. He sniffs along her skin there until he finds the gland just above her tail, and then he bites that one, completing his claim. This one bleeds more than the others, and as he laves his attention on it, she moans, her tail twisting to the side to present her. 

 

“Not yet,” he promises her. He's cruel enough to mark her only because it's for her own good, to help her adjust. He circles his fingers around her tail and runs them down the length, more than a little delighted when her tail wraps around his forearm. 

 

When Mike is sure her claiming bites won't bleed on the sheets, he hoists the neko into his arms and carries her to his bed. The immobility is wearing off, and she squirms under the covers in search of safety and solitude, so he gives her space. 

 

In the kitchen, he phones Erwin, inviting him over, and Erwin arrives an hour later with his boy in tow. As soon as the front door is closed, Levi’s nostrils are flaring and he's looking at Mike in a peculiar way before turning his attention to Erwin's coat. Once that is hung up, he removes his own, and then his shoes, placing them beside Erwin’s pair on the mat. His black tail is flicking with agitation. 

 

Erwin smells it, too. “Can I assume that you were finally successful in trapping that female?”

 

“Yes.” Mike leads them to the kitchen, and they sit at the bar while he gets down glasses and a pitcher of cold water. He explains the developments of the last several days, and when he's done, Levi tugs on Erwin's shirt and gets up to whisper something in his owner’s ear. 

 

“Levi would like to see her,” Erwin announces for his devocalised neko. 

 

In the bedroom, Levi climbs into Mike’s bed with ease because it's a familiar space, and then he slithers beneath the blankets and out of view. There's some aggressive sounds from her at having her space invaded, but Levi settles the debate by pushing all the bedding off and exposing them both. Instantly, she cowers, ears flat, tail wrapped tightly around her balled form.

 

“Easy, Levi,” Erwin says. “Don’t get excited.”

 

Levi keeps his features friendly as he inches inward, until he’s close enough to sniff at her initial claiming mark. His eyes cut to Mike momentarily, then at Erwin, who takes Mike’s elbow and walks them to the edge of the bed. She remains curled, but does not show any other increase in defensiveness. Levi takes Mike’s hand and puts it in her hair, and as Mike scratches her scalp, her body begins to relax. 

 

“Now go,” Levi wheezes, swatting them both away, intent on bathing her by the way he’s licking his lips.

 

“Has she eaten anything?” Erwin asks once they’ve vacated the bedroom. Levi bears bites from both of the hounds, and his presence will help acclimate her.

 

“She refuses.”

 

“It’s stress. That might change now that she smells like you. Are you going to mate her, or are you only claiming her for her own good? Hanji says the rescue is full, but I’m sure they could squeeze in one more stray.”

 

“Just claim her,” Mike mutters. The rescue is overcrowded. It’s only a matter of some filed paperwork for him to home her, and after he went through everything to save her life, it feels better to keep her.

 

“Don’t make my mistake,” Erwin says with seriousness. “This breed needs a mate to be stable. Without one, they’re miserable. You’ll need to do that tonight, to best solidify your claim.”

 

“I’ve already traumatised her.” Mike pinches the bridges of his nose with a sigh. “Don’t want her to wish she’d been put down instead.”

 

“Then why did you trap her, why did you claim her?”

 

“For her sake,” Mike lies. 

 

“You need to be honest with yourself.” Erwin cups Mike’s shoulders and levels him with a knowing look. “You own her. You chose to own her. She didn’t fall into your lap. You took her. And if you’re going to do it for her sake, then you should follow through with everything that she will need.”

 

Eventually, Levi coaxes her into Mike’s clothing and kitchen, and they take up residence at the bar, Levi peeling mandarins for her because her hands shake too violently. Hunching over as deeply as she does, she looks smaller than Levi, and she continues to shake as she eats; it's something in that fear that Mike finds... alluring. He finds in himself the desire to overpower her and make her obedient by force, just like he forced her body to accept his scent. 

 

Erwin’s talking to her about her captivity, piercing it easily in her silence. He talks about the neko repopulation rate, and how closely the breed needs to be tracked as part of preventative measures, how ferals or strays are either euthanised or spend the rest of their lives in confinement. He doesn’t tell her these things in a way to manipulate her feelings about Mike, he simply states the facts as he pets Levi’s head. Levi tries to put up a façade but he gives in and purrs, leaning his head back to chase Erwin’s hand. She watches that, too, with her ears twitching in curiosity.

 

Mike takes the dominance by the reins and steps into her personal space in her blind spot. She freezes, ears up, muscles tense, when he asserts his presence by leaning down and sniffing a long line up the back of her neck. It’s a pleasant combination of him inside of her now.

 

Erwin catches Mike’s eye and holds his gaze as Mike laps his tongue over her bite again, making her shrink further into herself and whimper. Even Levi shifts uncomfortably, and Mike knows that the three of them are thinking of Levi’s own adjustment period.

 

“Let’s get home, little kitten,” Erwin finally says to break the shared reveries.

 

Levi nods and hops down from the stool. He bypasses her to get to Mike, standing on his tiptoes and taking the kiss that Mike leans down to give him. He misses the little neko, but a punishment is a punishment.

 

“Thank you for letting me see him,” Mike says to Erwin when he sees them out. 

 

“He’s been behaving himself,” Erwin says. “The devocalisation has been effective in culling his disobedience.” He turns to leave, then pauses and turns back. “You need to mate her. I let Levi go too long, and I’ve been cleaning up that mess for the last month. Claim her all at once, and you won’t have the problems I have had.”

 

With a final clasp of Mike’s shoulder, Erwin leaves, tucking Levi under his arm in the evening chill.

 

She is not in the kitchen when he returns. He follows the scent trail to the living room and finds her crouched behind the sofa, her eyes two big saucers of fear.

 

“Hey, girl,” Mike coos, crouching to mirror her position. “It’s just you and me. Come on out.”

 

She only answers with whimpering, releasing more fear into the air, and it’s so alluring that Mike can’t keep from licking his lips.

 

“What’s your name, girl?” Mike waits until she crawls to him before he pets her hair, long strokes down her scalp and to her neck. The collar urges her gland to release scents with every brush against her skin. 

 

She looks up at him like she’s not sure she should answer, but he doesn’t press. Mike keeps touching her, then with both hands, cupping the base of her skull and his thumbs tilting her chin skyward to expose the long throat. Slowly, she sinks into his ministrations, and then she murmurs a contended, “Nanaba.”

 

“Nanaba,” Mike whispers, finding pleasure in the way she nods slightly. “Nana, a good girl.”

 

The praise makes her draw back, her brows pulling together. Mike knows what to do. He watched Erwin play this game with Levi for two weeks, a soft persuasion and ownership won by sweet words. So, he shushes her first, leans in close.

 

“What did I say you were?” He asks of her.

 

She doesn’t answer, instead holding tense in his grip for a long minute. Doubt pours out from her glands, a savoury wisp. Neither of them move, until she begins to relax in his hold once more, muscles making a slow surrender.

 

“Good girl, Nana,” he rumbles, and this time, the flash of tension lasts for a heartbeat before she accepts it silently. “Good, good, good.”

 

He begins to stroke her down her sides, his hands spanning over her hips, and even though she wears one of his heavy shirts, she shivers. Mike lets his knees come to the floor as he brings her deeper into his embrace, covering her in his scent from the source, revelling in how her glands give back that piece of him in replica. He strokes and pets until she becomes unsteady, until he coaxes her out from behind the sofa and carries her back to his bedroom. Even though she is a neko, he feels a possessiveness stirring, a need to mate and tend to her. Mike remembers what it was like when Erwin’s instincts caught hold of him and he needed to dominate Levi, but Levi was not yet submitting, and Erwin is right-- he’s been cleaning up that mess all month.

 

Shushing her, he lays her on his bed, where Levi’s scent lingers. He gives her no time to recover before he is pressing her down into the sheets, pushing her shoulders down in a clear indication to stop moving. 

 

“Please,” she whines, and with her alluring fear, it’s not hard to pretend that she’s asking for more.

 

When he’s done with her, he cleans her with his own tongue, puts the heavy shirt back on her body, and tucks her into his bed. She’s shivering again, a little bit shocked to be fully mated and knotted, so he stays close to her, touching her, giving her little bursts of oxytocin to settle her nerves.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_ “Do you think she will tolerate being taken in public?”  _ Erwin asks over the phone early the next morning. 

 

Mike had gotten out of bed with the sunrise and Nana had followed him to the bathroom just a few minutes later, as he might expect from a sleepy, imprinted neko. Now, he sits on a stool at the bar where yesterday afternoon she sat with Levi, meanwhile she curls up on the kitchen tiles beside his feet. Every so often as he drinks his coffee after breakfast, he dips his toes to let them stroke her side. She's shivering again. 

 

“Only been to the vet,” Mike tells him. 

 

_ “A little fear to make her cling to you, that'll do her good,” _ Erwin suggests, and there's rasping somewhere on the other end, most likely Levi saying something, because Mike can hear Erwin croon,  _ “I know, baby boy.” _

 

“She needs food for recovery.” If they go early enough, it won't be busy. It would be just enough to frighten her. Under his feet, she's curled tight. It shows him her ribs and the notches of her spine, some familiar emaciation like when Levi first got caught. It's only taken a month for the boy’s cheeks to start filling in again, maybe it'll be the same for her. She looks about as young as Levi, barely breeding age, or maybe that's how a life of malnutrition makes them look. He doesn't know. It's never been illegal for him to live. 

 

She's over breeding age, at least, because she got wet for him. It’s good that he caught her when he did. Most neko don't make it too long after they get a litter in their belly. 

 

_ “I still have a copy of the diet plan we used on Levi. I'll bring that along.” _

 

“Thank you.” Mike suggests they meet in an hour at their local grocer. It's situated between both houses, and it's been their favourite since they started dating all those years ago. When he sets his phone down on the bar, Nana’s ears twitch and her tail wraps around her body. 

 

They'd had to be careful with Levi. His stomach was a tender thing, like gossamer, for a week until he'd adjusted to having calories at his disposal. There'd been sickness, too, as his body learned to digest surplus. At the store, they'll need to get electrolyte replacements for when Nana inevitably falls ill. 

 

“Hey, girl.” At his coo, she opens her eyes and focuses on him. “Do you want to eat?”

 

Quickly, she uncurls to sit on the floor in seiza, looking at him for what's to come. Mike gets down from his stool and retrieves a skillet and a carton of eggs, then proceeds to cook one over low heat. He slides it into a plate and sets the plate in the floor in front of her. 

 

Nana leans down to sniff at it. With her nails, she carefully pinches off some of the egg whites, licking at it before slipping it into her mouth. She chews with such thoughtfulness that Mike wouldn't know she's lived on the streets. Slowly, she pinches the egg into pieces and eats them, and when she's done, she licks the plate and her fingers clean in a meticulous fashion. 

 

“Want another?” He asks but she shakes her head and holds the plate up for him to take back. It goes into the sink to sit until the next time he washes the dishes. 

 

As Mike moves out of the kitchen and back to his bedroom, she follows, eyes glued to him. His bed still smells heavily of sex, and while it's not something unusual, it's a pleasant reminder. It stirs his desire again. 

 

“Get up,” Mike instructs her, leaning over to plant his hands in the sheets. She obeys. “You're housebroken. Have you always been on the streets?”

 

Nana is looking at him with those wide, fearful eyes, until she slowly shakes her head without breaking the eye contact. 

 

“Were you in a home?”

 

Again, she shakes her head. 

 

“Where did you live?”

 

Nanaba whimpers as if the memory is bad, so Mike shushes her by kissing her. She's soft under his lips, and her mouth is warm. They have to be at the grocery store in a little less than an hour, but if he doesn't penetrate her, then they don't have to wait for his knot. 

 

“On your back,” he murmurs against her lips on a broken kiss. As soon as she complies, Mike sinks between her legs, his mouth on the glands at her inner thighs. Those, he nibbles until she squirms, and when she's whimpering again, Mike raises his mouth to her sex and laps at it to clean it one more time. When she goes to kick him away, he grabs her ankle and hikes it up beside her ears, splaying her wide and helpless, only able to let him do as he pleases. The taste of himself there is faint. He wouldn't mind refilling her once they're back home. 

 

They're almost late leaving for the store, only because Nanaba had to be dragged into the shower along Mike. She needs to be acceptably clean, she can't rely on her own tongue when standards are higher in public. He makes sure her collar is fastened and visible after he dresses her in something passable, which happens to be one of Levi's sets of clothing that he keeps here. Even the shoes fit. There are no spare coats of Levi’s, so Mike puts her in one of his own and it swallows her up, making her look smaller than she actually is. Before they leave the safety of his home, he scent marks her, rubbing his wrists over her hair. She shakes, nearly hyperventilates, but takes his hand and steps outside with him.

 

Erwin and Levi are standing near the entrance when Mike finally arrives with Nana in tow. She's like a live wire beside him, all frantic anxiety, but one brush of Levi's fingers at her throat deflates her. 

 

“Come now, boy, let Mike comfort her,” Erwin gently chastises, a fleeting whisper. 

 

Mike understands her actions. She's used to remaining unseen, and here she is, legally allowed to be in public as long as Mike says so. All around her are hounds and their foreign scents, so having a neko near her must be a relaxing presence. And Erwin is right, she must learn to take her comfort from Mike. 

 

She has little interest in the vegetables and fruits that Erwin has them put in their basket, but she does perk up when they choose a carton of high-quality, grass-fed, organic cream. Mike wasn't looking but he thinks she licks her lips. It's the same when they choose a heavy filet of deep pink, nearly red fish. The two pairs pay for their groceries and part ways with the promise to do this again overmorrow. Nana looks forlorn, like she'd rather go home with Levi, but she's still emotionally tethered to Mike like she has been all day. With twined fingers, they walk home. Her fear makes her quiet and pliant in public. That's good. Levi had been so disrespectful before his devocalisation, but it looks like his neko won't need the same treatment. At least, not yet. 

 

“Take my coat off,” he orders when the front door is once again closed and locked behind them. Their bag sits on the floor, waiting to be addressed, while Nana takes to his buttons with clumsy, unpracticed fingers, but it's important that this routine start now, from their first trip out together. It'll be easiest for her to find her desire to serve him. 

 

Once both coats are hanging up and both pairs of shoes are put away, Mike shows her how to put the different purchases away. Cream and fish into the refrigerator with the spinach. Avocado and bananas on the counter. Beans and rice in the pantry. Soon, he needs to teach her how to be alone all day. The claiming of two nekos are burning through his vacation days, and he'll need to get back to work. 

 

“Let's wash our hands,” he explains, showing her, not for the first time, how to remove dirt and scents. When they're done, he says, “Go get back in bed.”

 

She doesn't shiver until he strips her naked again and presses her down into the sheets. The bite on her neck is scabbing so he doesn't renew it yet, focusing instead on the gland just above her tail. All her claiming marks are healing so slowly, a byproduct of her poor nutrition, and Mike knows the bones peeking under her skin are delicate and breakable. She's imprinted to him now, bonded and mated. She wouldn't be able to leave even if she tried, so leaving her alone all day doesn't worry him as far as escape is concerned. It'll be the psychological effects of loneliness that he needs to watch for, until she's more stable in their routine. 

 

He licks her out again, this time letting his pleasure show in the unabashed wagging of his tail, his strong arms easily keeping her hips flat and her thighs spread, even as she curls her upper body sideways into the pillows to hide. The combination of his spit and her slickness makes it easy when he penetrates her this time and she cums when his knot swells inside of her. Mike catches her wrists and holds them above her head to keep her from scratching him, and then he maneuvers them onto their sides. 

 

“There, good girl,” he praises, spooning her from behind, letting his hand rub her belly where the presence of him distends her. She's shivering again, but she curls back into him, seeking him for comfort, so he strokes down the length of her striped tail. “Good, good, my mate, good.”

 

There's so much for him to teach her, just like there's still so much to teach Levi. Together, he and Erwin will get these strays sorted out somehow. Their little lives depend on it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first day as a family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> taking that they're malnourished, the poor kitties are probably somewhere between 14-16

Levi has seen Nana three times when Erwin tells him to pack a bag for the weekend because they'll be staying over at Mike’s house. He doesn't think he’s ever obeyed an order with more fervor. They meet at the grocery store, their halfway point, Mike and Nana having already done the shopping, and together they walk back. She's following him around like a little lost kitten, never taking her eyes off him. Levi is glad to see her imprinted so soon, she won't suffer as much as he did.

As soon as coats and shoes are put in their proper places, Levi tugs at Erwin’s shirt sleeve to ask, “Can we make tea?”

Mike has the really nice leaf blend that Levi enjoys, and he's more than a little delighted when Erwin nods his permission. He prepares for four as Nanaba puts away most of their purchase, save for a small container whose label neither of them can read. They have tea and a snack of biscuits at the proper dining table, and it's easy for Levi to imagine them as a family. Erwin says that as soon as Nana learns how to behave, they'll be together again, and Levi wants her to get herself sorted. He misses Mike.

After tea, Erwin gets out the workbooks and Levi sits up in his chair, attentive. Erwin is proud of his work when he’s proficient in his daily lessons. It’s even better today because for Nana, it’s all new, but it’s all review to Levi. He can recognise all of his letters and numbers now, and Erwin promises to show him how to read next. For an hour, Erwin sits between the two of them, working at their individual paces, making corrections when necessary, or answering Levi’s questions. Nana doesn’t ask anything, neither does she speak. After lessons, they help Mike in cleaning up. Nanaba gets sat down on the floor in front of the sofa with a basket of laundry to fold while Levi trails the two hounds, doing whatever they tell him to. Altogether like that, they make quick of the work.

The last chores are in the en suite of Mike’s bedroom, one being to scrub out the bathtub and Levi jumps at that opportunity. While Erwin’s home has a really large waterfall shower, Mike has a separate shower and bathtub, the latter like a deep cauldron. Levi's only gotten to use it a few times, but he was sulking when he did, so he didn't properly enjoy it. He wants to enjoy it today, so he gives the porcelain thorough attention. Nanaba learns how to scrub the toilet and sink areas, her ears flicking around in agitation at the smell of the cleaning products. Levi ignores her contagious agitation as best as he can.

After chores, Erwin leads them in washing their hands and sits them down on the kitchen floor for another little snack. Levi gets a whole cookie but Nana gets less than half. Her portion is less but Levi's jealousy spikes when Erwin’s fingers put it straight into her mouth.

His growl comes unbidden, his ears lowering, his tail making a rapid sweep, and Erwin's disciplinary backhand is swift. Levi recovers in shocked silence, still holding his treat in the hand that Erwin placed it.

“You are in no danger of being replaced,” Erwin rumbles out, a low growl that might precede a bark. Levi shys back and eats his treat. When both of the nekos are finished, Erwin pets them, giving Levi attention first, before moving to Nanaba and asking her how she feels.

“Good,” she murmurs very quietly. As an afterthought, she says, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, little one.” Erwin ruffles her hair and scratches behind both of her ears at the same time, making her surrender to the nice touches.

After they each drink a whole glass of water, Erwin guides them to the guest bedroom. Levi can still smell a little bit of anxiety as they pass the hallway bathroom where Nana must have stayed for her first few days in a home. It's the same one Levi was kept in until he showed them that he was toilet trained.

The sheets on the bed are clean, so they only smell like detergent. Erwin pats the bed to have both nekos join him, and he situates himself in the middle as they lay down for a nap. Levi makes sure to nestle deep into Erwin's side, his nose in Erwin's armpit, and he allows himself to purr without restraint. Levi has missed Mike, but somehow he didn't realise that spending the weekend here would mean having to balance around Nana, too. It's new and he doesn't know how he feels about the arrangement, but he'll adjust if his mates want him to.

He paws at the narrow space between two of his hound’s ribs, and when Erwin raises his head to inquire, Levi rasps, “I didn't mean to growl at her.”

“I know, baby boy. I’ll get the rest of those wild instincts out of you.”

With Erwin's assurance, Levi puts his head down and goes to sleep.

;;;

Levi wakes to a hand wandering around the base of his tail. It tickles when fingers brush over his bitten gland, and below that tickle, there is a hot stirring in his body. As his hips twitch back reflexively, a whine slips out of his mouth. A strong hand turns him from his side and onto his face in the bed. It's not Erwin’s hand, it doesn't feel right or smell right, and suddenly through the drowsiness, he realises that it is Mike’s hand. He's still in the guest room at Mike’s home.

“Let’s see you,” the hound croons and Levi's hips push back and up, raising his ass in an obscene manner. “Good boy, have you missed me?”

Levi hums a tight “Mhm!” but when he looks around and finds the room empty, he knows he can moan freely so he does. He asks in his blissful haze, “Where'd they go?”

“Making his claim. I ran the bath.” Mike slips his fingers below the hem of Levi's dress and pinches the base of his tail before circling his fingers and running them down the length. Again, Levi moans, feeling his sex stir in interest even though a bath is more tempting. The fabric is pushed back to expose him, and then he can feel teeth puncture his skin as Mike renews one of his bites.

Levi's head drops into the sheets and he's panting, his tail swishing to the side to present him for mating. Two fingers invade him, spearing him and teasing without doing work to prepare him. Still, it feels good, and Levi pushes back into it, moaning his desire for more.

“So wet,” Mike whispers along his spine. “Did Erwin fuck you?”

Levi shakes his head, and when Mike asks if he'll be in heat soon, Levi nods. The fingers scissor out and he lets his body melt. When he's ready, Mike fucks him painstakingly slowly, until he's drooling and limp, and Levi takes the knot with ease. Erwin always tells him that he was made to be knotted, with how greedy his hole accepts.

His strength is coming back by the time the knot deflates, but Mike carries him to the bath regardless. On their way through Mike’s bedroom, Levi's eye catches movement on the bed, and when he turns his head, he's greeted with the sight of Erwin spooning Nanaba, a telltale bulge in her abdomen. He wants to feel jealous but he and Mike were just the same way a few minutes ago and there's something comforting her fearful shivers. He feels a kinship toward her now that they've both had the painful experience of becoming doubly mated. He remembers how badly the second set of bites had hurt, how it had burned as his body tried to reject the new saliva but was ultimately overridden. He remembers thinking that pain would kill him.

Levi undresses himself and climbs up and into the deep bathtub. The water is too hot, turning him red instantly, but it feels good to submerge himself, warding off shivers as he comes into a drop. Mike sits on the edge and Levi sidles over, resting his cheek in the rim beside a strong thigh, receiving a damp towel to his head.

Within a few minutes, Erwin brings Nanaba into the bathroom. With the way he puts her into the bath, Levi guesses that she's still too weak to do it on her own. Even with another body in the bath, it's not a tight squeeze, but Nanaba curls up with her knees to her chest anyway.

The new bite on her neck looks deep. Erwin always bites him the same way, too, as if he wants to tear off a chunk of meat to eat. Mike's bites are more gentle, efficient in their purpose. With curiosity, Levi scoots closer to sniff her, but she whimpers and moves back from him.

“He's not going to hurt you, little one,” Erwin says, coming to sit on the rim of the tub as well, putting a towel on the scared neko’s head.

Levi keeps his posture friendly as he closes the distance between them, catching the scent of his two mates where they mingle inside of her glands. He licks his lips, wondering how his own bite might smell in addition, but he holds back. Erwin already said Levi wouldn't hurt her right now. He drifts back to his side of the bath and slowly, she relaxes into the warm water, shivers ceasing.

Where Levi was furious with his captivity, always pushing against the boundaries and needing to be punished, Nana is accepting. She takes what the hounds give her with a lowered head and bared neck. He doesn't think she's ever been disciplined, and maybe it would be good for him to copy her a little bit. His disobedience lost him his voice, after all. For the rest of his life, he'll be a quiet, rasping thing, nearly silent, unable to call out for help or be heard.

After they stew like prunes in the bath, the get out and dry off. Levi can get himself dressed but Nana needs help, so he assists her in getting into some clean clothing even though she flinches every time they touch.

Into the kitchen they go to cook their dinner, and while the hounds take on that task, Levi and Nana work together on a colour-by-number picture. She doesn't know her numbers like Levi does, so she picks one to focus on at a time, meanwhile Levi likes to work the picture from the bottom up, switching crayons with every different numbered block. They’ve completed three pages by the time Erwin pulls down plates.

“Show her how to set the table.” Erwin sets the stack of plates in Levi's waiting hands.

She watches him put down three place settings, and copies his actions in setting up the fourth one. When they eat, Mike gives her tiny portions but she doesn't complain. Levi remembers when he could only eat little bites at a time, and now he can get seconds when Erwin allows it.

Mike shows her how to wash dishes while Levi dries them and puts them away, and after that, Erwin chooses something educational to watch. Levi thinks the children’s programs are bright and silly, but when he looks sideways at Nana where they're sitting on the floor together between Erwin’s knees, her eyes are wide with captivation. Fingers come to his crown and gently coax him to face forward again. It's a show about science, focusing on the formation of their solar system. Erwin read a book about this to Levi last week, and he's pleased with himself that he knows many of the facts being presented. Beside him, Nana joins in purring.

When it's over, Levi crawls out from between Erwin's knees and into a long, low stretch. There's a tug on his tail and he looks back expecting to see Erwin’s hand, but it's Nanaba instead. Levi flicks it out of her reach. He opens his mouth but before he can speak, Mike walks into the living room with a storybook.

“Come on, bedtime.” He pats his thigh. “Let’s go. Bathroom first. Then the big bed.”

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for murder

Mike smells the intrusion before Erwin, and they share a look in the dimly lit bedroom. They're on opposite sides of the bed with their little nekos squished between them, the moonlight angling so that it paints the foot of the bed. Outside in his backyard, he hears the rattling of a fence being jumped and a moment later, the deadly snap of an inhumane, but not illegal, metal trap. When it was only Nanaba skulking around his property at night, he could pick up her attributes from her scent, her approximate age and her vulnerability. He'd used traps without cruelty to catch her, but now that he has the one he wants, he doesn't care.

The invader yowls in pain, and the nekos are pulled viciously into consciousness by the keen of one of their own breed. Levi jerks up, his eyes barely open, looking around to see who needs his help.

“Shhh, baby boy,” Erwin coos as he pushes Levi back down against his chest, a big hand on the back of his head.

Beside Mike, Nana is awake, but unmoving. She's facing away from him, so he can't see her expression, but there's a tendril of love escaping her gland that he thinks isn't meant for him.

Mike pushes her hair back, scratching her black ear. “You recognise that sound?”

Under his hand, she nods. Erwin's watching her, too, and when he looks at Mike, his eyes betray nothing.

With a kiss to her neck, Mike orders her, “Stay in bed with Levi.”

Erwin joins him in investigating the contents of the triggered trap. As soon as they're in the backyard with the flashlight, the smell of panic and pain assaults them. The light catches and reflects from a pair of eyes as there is another terrible yowling, made more desperate by the proximity of threat. Its left ankle is caught in the teeth of a clamp, the bone broken and peeking through the skin.

It's a neko, alright. They can tell by the gradient, a quality unique to only felines. This one isn't black like the two sleeping in Mike’s bed. Its ears and tail are calico, its hands and feet bright orange before sinking into ivory, but it's got the same kind of blonde hair as his Nana. It's much younger, though, yet there's enough familiar in it for Mike to assume it could be a half sibling. He's going to have to find out where Nana comes from so that animal control can do away with them all.

In the neko’s panic, it catches her scent on Mike and begins to scream out, “Nana!” repeatedly at the top of its lungs.

Mike hits it with the flashlight to get it to be quiet. That only serves to make it frantic as it tries to crawl away, but the chain on the clamp is staked too deep. It yowls again but it looks at something past the two hounds and it perks up with hope.

“Plum?” A very quiet voice asks from behind Mike. His frustration flares. Of course she didn't listen.

He half turns so that he can pin her with a glare and she takes a step back, but the sight of a sibling pulls her forward from the house and into the yard. It's as if she doesn't even see Mike, moving with such purpose to get to the calico neko, that he stops her by throwing his arm out to catch her shoulders.

“That's my sister,” Nana murmurs with disbelief. “Please, get her out of that, its hurting her!”

The trapped neko whimpers, and Nana pushes against Mike’s arm but he holds steady.

“Get back inside, little one,” Erwin orders. They came out here to find out if the intruder was a neko and put it down, and there is indeed a feline so it will be dealt with.

“That's my sister,” Nanaba breathes again. “Please…”

“Get back inside,” Mike echoes of Erwin's previous order. He cups her thin shoulder in his massive grip and tries to twist her around, but she resists. The bones beneath his hand are thin and delicate from a life of eating scraps, and they would be incredibly easy to break. He tries again to coax her back inside, and when she fights him, taking a step closer to the calico, his patience and her clavicle snap together.

She opens her mouth like a scream but a cut-off squeak is all that leaves, and then she drops to her knees in the dirt, holding her shoulder where he pushed down with his palm. There's shock pouring into the air from her gland, and the calico begins yowling again, the thrashes of an animal that know its demise is imminent.

“Please, mate,” Nana whispers, though she hasn't taken her eyes off of Plum. “Please don't hurt her.”

“Erwin,” Mike says gruffly and that's all the command the other hound needs. He's never heard Nanaba speak so much, and she's _never_ acknowledged him as her mate. It is wearing on his resolve.

Erwin moves around behind Plum. The tiny calico is shivering, eyes big and unfocused, blindly yowling for help that will not come. Nanaba continues to beg as Erwin brings his hands down in either side of a thin face, takes hold of the chin and forehead, and twists. The bones break with ease, and silence falls over the backyard, both the yowling and the begging ceasing together. A sharp intake of breath alerts Mike to where Levi is standing at the backdoor, looking pale.

And then the moment is over, Nanaba replacing her sister’s noise with her own wailing, mournful and pathetic, calling out the name of the dead neko. Desperately, she scrambles forward to clutch at the body, pulling it into her lap and licking the unresponsive ears, nuzzling the cheek.

“Told you to get inside,” Mike barks at her.

“She's my sister,” is the only thing Nana says, but it's less of a reply and more of a litany. The air around her is stricken with disbelief, with shock, with grief. But this had to be done. She should have just gone back in-fucking-side.

Erwin steps around the crumple to Mike’s side, keeping his voice low, “I'll call animal control to dispose of it.” Then, he continues on toward the house where Levi is still standing at the backdoor like a ghost. Mike watches as Levi looks up at Erwin with fear in his eyes, as Erwin takes Levi's chin and strokes a thumb over his lips before kissing his forehead. They disappear deeper into the house together, leaving Mike alone to focus on the scene before him.

Nana is bathing her dead sister now, whimpering softly as she does, and her eyes are glazed over. The body is as filthy as Nana was when he first caught her, with the addition of the blood from the clamp that broke its ankle. Without a beating heart, the blood is draining now, straight from the broken ankle and into the soil. Aside from all of that, Mike can pick up on clues to where the calico came from, and he gets closer to get a better whiff. Mike squats next to Nana and she doesn't even notice until Mike reaches out to rub his fingers along the dirty shirt. She's cobra-quick, scratching a neat set of lines right through his palm.

“Don't touch her!” Nana screams at him. It's the loudest sound she's ever made, it's the fastest she's ever moved, but Mike will not let the behaviour slide by.

Regardless of the broken clavicle, he is stands and takes her by the hair, making her crawl behind him as he takes her back into the house. With only one arm to support herself, she stumbles as they go, but he makes her keep up by yanking on her curls. The back door he slams open, and then hauls her inside with a toss. She lands on her bad side, letting out a pained, breathless moan, but in the next instant, he's forcing her to her feet and pulling her into the kitchen. At the sink, he turns the water on and takes the hose, spraying her in the face. She fights him, swiping to scratch but missing, and he’s beyond frustrated at this point. He scruffs her.

She's tense and still where he's leaning her over the sink, and he washes out her mouth and nails without care to how roughly he does it. When the tonic immobility strikes, he doesn't catch her in her fall, and she knocks her temple against the counter as she goes down.

The body has been taken off by the time Nanaba picks herself up from the kitchen tiles and skulks into the hallway bathroom, back into her hiding place between toilet and bathtub.

If she wants some solitude, he's going to let her have it. He's never had to watch a sibling die, let alone by a mate’s hands, so he doesn't understand what she's feeling. Even with her emotions, she will have to learn that it is not okay to lash out at him. He washes up and climbs back into bed, sandwiching Levi into Erwin’s chest and wishing for her to join him.

When he wakes, he goes to find her in the bathroom and she's in the guest bedroom instead, having pulled all of the blankets off the mattress and taken them into the closet with her to form a nest.

“Little one,” he croons. Tenderly, he wakes her by licking the bite on her throat, and then he helps her wash her face, brush her teeth, and get dressed for the day. Skills that Mike thinks nothing of require all of her attention, but she's learning.

Mike takes her to the veterinarian before breakfast, not only for her wounds, but also to finalise the paperwork on her. During the visit, she’s reserved and docile, clearly exhausted from the night before, so in addition to an opioid, the vet prescribes a benzodiazepine. Her weight still hasn’t improved yet, but a review of the diet has the green light. Mike recounts her sexual activity, and marks her down as mated, much to the approval of the vet. Soon, she should have her very first heat, and living with Levi, they're likely to sync up. In another month, they’ll come back for a check-up and another set of vaccine boosters. For her paperwork, they assign her a birthday based on the estimate of her age, and Mike lists her legal name as Little One Nanaba Zacharias. When they leave the clinic, Nanaba is officially owned by him, in all meanings of the word, with an official government tag on her collar.

She has a legal name now, but not legal personhood, nor citizenship. She's simply property. He's responsible for her every action, which is why the vet approves of Mike having mated her for her own good. It will calm her down, make her less of a risk. She'll cling to him, and that will keep her safe.

Back home, she's listless. She completes a lesson with Erwin, helps with chores, and eats her snack without uttering a peep. Before nap time, Mike slips her medication into a spoonful of milk so that she can swallow it, and she goes to sleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. It's Mike laying with the nekos today while Erwin goes out on errands.

He bathes them when they wake up. The remainder of the afternoon and evening are quiet, and they all fall into Mike’s bed right after dinner.

Mike makes an event of licking every single one of her scent glands: her throat, beside her breasts, her inner thighs, her ankles, her wrists, and lastly the gland above her tail, turning her to purring jelly in his grasp. He circles her tail with his fingers and runs them down the length, giving the tip a tug that makes her moan. In Erwin's lap, Levi watches as he gets his ears licked.

“Are you going to fuck her?” Levi asks, barely audible even in a quiet room where Nana’s purring is his only competition. “Can I watch?”

Erwin smacks his hand over Levi's mouth playfully, but as he tugs Nana’s tail again, Mike chuckles back, “Don't see why not.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is terribly revealing of my mental state, isn't it


	5. Chapter 5

After their first day back at work since acquiring the little one, Erwin meets Mike at the bookstore on the corner between their respective workplaces and they walk home together. It feels good to be at his job again, even though all day long, a part of Mike longed to sink his teeth into his neko’s flesh. He’s thinking about doing just that when they get to the door and unlock it. The sight and smell stops both hounds in their tracks. In the doorway, Levi is hunched over in half, his forehead to the floor, and not only is he shaking, but he’s pouring out bursts of fear with every rapid beat of his heart.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Levi begs, and it’s so hard to hear clearly with his head down. “I didn’t mean to scratch her!”

Erwin looks at Mike and then down at his boy before silently stepping into the house and around the shaking, crumpled form. Levi scrabbles to follow, thin fingers completing the duty of Erwin’s shoes but when he goes to undo the coat, Erwin grabs a fistful of black hair and pulls. Nana is nowhere in sight, so Mike takes off his own outerwear and puts it away, all the while watching the pair beside him.

“Please,” Levi rasps, and Erwin loosens his grip. There’s been a spike of fear in him since he watched Erwin break a neko’s neck without hesitation. “I’m sorry.”

“Hold your apologies, they’re worthless to me,” Erwin chastises and Levi shrinks back until Erwin releases his hair, and then he dives into the task of putting Erwin’s coat away.

By then, Mike has already begun to move through the house, scenting for his girl. He finds her in the guest bedroom closet again, all the bedding dragged in with her, like a little nest. That’s twice now. He will allow it become a habit for her to seek comfort here, and he’ll fuck her here so that she associates this nest with oxytocin. In the future, when he wants her to self-soothe, he can simply send her to this closet.

Mike crouches right outside the perimeter of her safe space and gives a hum. Somewhere in the bedding, Nana startles. Her head pops up and Mike’s eyes are instantly drawn to the deep scratches across the left side of her face, spanning from her temple and down to her chin. They’re incredibly deep and fresh, and there’s blood smearing all the way down her neck and shoulder. Her nest will need to be washed quickly to avoid staining.

“Hey, little one.” He holds out a hand in a come-here gesture. Slowly, she untangles and crawls into his arms, a slow task with one arm in a sling, whimpering for him the whole way, and he licks at her scratches as soon as she’s within reach. Without grace, she collapses into him, her body shivering. As he cleans her, he lets one hand drift up to her scruff, fingers flirtatious. The motion calms her.

“Mate,” she murmurs into his neck. It’s such a sweet sound.

“Little one.” Mike licks one final long strip and then he seeks the mouth that she freely gives to him. There’s been distance between them during the last couple days as she grieved, so for her to open underneath him now feels so good.

“Mate,” she murmurs again, this time low and breathy. Mike finds her tail wrapping around his forearm and he tugs it experimentally, finding reward in the way she gasps and pushes her nose against the gland at his throat.

“You’re going into heat soon,” Mike says as soon as the thought occurs to him. The vet informed him that her body’s been holding out longer than it should, waiting for a few more calories and a deeper sense of safety to let her biological clock start, and it must be sated now.

Against his neck, Nana shakes her head. “Mh-mh.”

“Don’t worry.” Hands grasp her hips and pull her up to straddle one of his legs. “Don’t fight it. Let it come.”

He fucks her slowly, folding her in half in the pile of bedding, and he knots her after just a couple of minutes. For several long minutes after that, they stay settled together on the floor, and when she feels good enough to get cleaned up, Mike takes her to the master en suite and runs a deep bath while he undoes the arm sling and combs her hair. She’s waiting patiently on the floor in front of the bathtub when Erwin joins them, carrying his bloody neko like a bride. Levi’s panting, ribs swelling with every breath. He’s already bruising. Erwin doesn’t lick him clean, instead giving him a washcloth and orders to get the filth off his skin before he gets in the bath. Nana waits for Levi, and they climb in together.

As Erwin recounts the reason for Nana’s injury, Mike sits passively on the ledge of the tub. According to Levi, Nanaba is innocent. It’s all his own insecurities that caused him to lash out when he watched her scent marking herself with Erwin’s dirty laundry. Since Levi has already paid for his transgressions by blood, Mike scratches both nekos behind their ears before giving them towels on their heads.

The rest of the night is focused on teaching Nanaba the new routine of evenings on workdays. They wash the guest bedding and luckily, all of the blood comes out. Lessons come before they all make dinner together, and after dishes, they forego watching any television so that Erwin can read picture books to them. After the nekos get tucked into the big bed, the hounds shower and then join them.

Over the next day, Mike’s mind is back home while he’s at work, and he doesn’t wait for Erwin before setting off. Today when he enters the house, both felines come rushing to him, but only Nana stays to deal with his shoes and coat. Levi hangs back in the living room, curling up on the sofa where the sunbeam hits.

Nana smells good in Mike’s arms. He leans down, one hand cupping the base of her skull, and bites the claiming mark on her neck. Her gasp is so sweet and the burst of desire from her gland is even sweeter, especially when he licks it up alongside her blood. It tastes different than it did yesterday when he cleaned her scratches.

“You’re almost in heat now,” Mike announces. “In a few hours, you’ll be begging for my knot.”

Nana shakes her head but he doesn’t allow her to deny him. Instead, he takes her back to the sofa with Levi and tells her to lay down with him. Mike can smell that same sweetness in the baby boy. No wonder they’re curling up in sunlight together.

Erwin’s arrival jarrs them from their nap again half an hour later, and he can smell the heat on the nekos, too. Regardless, they go through with their routine, and by the end of the evening, Levi is a suffering mess while Nana’s condition has plateaued and seems to be coming down from a false start. Her body is trying too soon, and her heat is dissolving, but that isn't uncommon in newly-domesticated ferals. Meanwhile, the baby boy’s had a month and a half to adjust to a cozy life, and his body is taking advantage of that, giving him an intense first heat.

His scent doesn't call to the hounds on a primal level like it would to a tomcat, but it's delicious nonetheless. Since Levi got to watch Mike fuck Nana a few nights ago, it's only fair that she watch him in his torturous throes now, though it is also in part to show her what to expect when her own heat strikes.

Levi’s body finds satisfaction sometime after midnight, and they breed him again in the morning to tide him over until they'll get home in the afternoon. It goes like this for two days before it starts to dwindle down. Nana stays close to him as much as he will allow when he's not being fucked, and on the third day, the hounds come home without a greeting and find that she's dragged him into her nest for a deep sleep. They understand. He's exhausted from the physical ordeal, and he wouldn't want to be left alone in such a vulnerable, emotional time.

No more ferals wander into the traps. Life falls into schedule and the nekos learn slowly how to live properly in society. Nana’s scratches heal into pink scars and Levi’s bruises fade down into nothing. After another veterinarian appointment, Nana gets her sling removed for good, as the bone is healing fine.

On a sleepy Saturday morning, Mike and Erwin take them out further and further from the suburbs, into the expanse of cityscape. After a certain point of civilisation, it's impossible for ferals to roam unseen, so neither neko has ventured in this area until now.

Under Mike’s arm, Nana is relaxing slowly, but that is undone when a police officer approaches them to check identification tags. Mike holds the tag up clearly for the officer to read, and he can feel the pulse in her suprasternal notch pounding away. It's only a routine check, it lasts just a moment for each of them so that the officer can verify ownership, but it ruins her nerves for the rest of the journey. They go home soon after that, with the promise to try again next weekend.

The next Saturday, they make it to their destination in the upscale downtown. While the nekos eat at the table at home, it's impolite in public, so at the restaurant, they sit on pillows on the floor. A few people look over, but it's not so unusual that anyone stares. The hounds eat first, and when they're finished, they feed their mates like one would feed an infant. Going in public is stressful, so Mike makes sure to rub his wrist over his little one’s throat in between every spoonful of her meal. Levi is less worried about being in public, he's simply grumpy with hunger.

They get back home without any incidents. It's promising. There are always stories of felines that don't adjust well to a new life, and it always ends in euthanasia one way or another, but it seems neither of theirs will fall into that fate. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there, thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mutilation (levi gets declawed)

The second time the baby boy scratches Nanaba, she has to be taken to the veterinarian immediately. The cost of an after-hours emergency is the only thing saving Levi from being declawed then and there, but Erwin still takes a pamphlet for the procedure and reads it to Levi in the dim waiting room. Erwin promises his neko that next time he scratches someone, he’ll have the last phalanges of all his fingers taken off. Another heat is approaching, but that does not excuse his territorial urge for violence. She’s showing no signs of heat, so Levi will get two knots all to himself for a whole weekend, there's no competition; and even if she _were_ , then they would both be taken care of. Erwin tells him this, in Mike’s presence, as they wait for the little one to get sewn back together, as he shows Levi before-and-after photos of declawed hands.

The abdominal injury is tender, so their vet lends them a kennel to carry her back in. She’s curled inside on the bedding that they brought her in with, and she is such a tiny fetal ball, hardly ninety pounds even with two months of proper nutrition, that Mike can carry the small kennel without assistance. It’s a tight fit meant to keep her from jostling her injury.

They had been in such a rush to get here that Mike had driven the car. It makes getting home easy.

Mike cannot call in from work on such short notice, but Erwin can; he takes the next two days so that the little one can be tended to around the clock. During that time, Levi succumbs to heat, and Erwin leaves him to suffer on his own. Because of that, Erwin doesn’t discipline the neko physically this time, and the baby boy is on edge, waiting for the snap of harm to come and set him straight. There is no such thing as too obedient, but Levi comes close to creating a definition.

The little one is weaned from the pain medications and she’s still bedbound, but Erwin returns to work with a strict reminder for Levi to keep his hands to himself. Every day that week, the hounds return home to find the baby boy curled up outside of the guest bedroom door like a pining lover, ever-anxious to get to the closet and bathe the little one. His affection has the hounds letting their guard down too early, because just as Nana begins to move around the house on her own again, Levi makes a move to scratch at her. Even worse, he dares to do so in front of his mates during dinner. At the last minute, he pulls back, but he still nicks her throat with one claw.

Erwin can see the way the fire fades from his eyes quickly, how tense his body becomes when he realises what he’s just done. “Sit down and finish eating,” he says, calmly, and Levi drops back into his chair.

Declawing is a simple outpatient surgery, and Levi is back home in Mike’s bed by mid-morning the next day. His hands are wrapped up in protective mittens, so Erwin feeds him with a spoon, gives him a high dose of opioids, tucks him in, and goes back to work.

Nana greets him and Mike every day for the rest of the week, putting away their coats and shoes. Erwin finds Levi on the sofa, his hands curled into his chest, and the hound drops his own hand down into black hair to card through the strands. It startles the feline momentarily, but when he realises it is simply his mate, he relaxes back down.

“Let’s change your bandages before lessons.” Erwin finds the particular spot behind one of Levi’s ears and is rewarded with a purring.

The numby ends of his fingers aren’t healing in the timeframe that they’re expected to. Erwin tastes them, sniffs them, and they’re free of the tang of infection. Probably a lingering effect of malnutrition, then.

The baby boy’s hands are so sensitive the the cold now, so over the top of the bandages and splints are fleece mittens. It makes the neko useless, and Erwin knows he knows it, too.

“All the things you’ve lost because of your wild instincts,” Erwin muses one afternoon at bathtime. Levi’s resting his cheek on the rim of the tub, little one beside him as always. Their ears turn in unison to take in his quiet words. “You would still have your voice and your claws if you would be more like Nana.”

As if he needs to drive his point home, Erwin reaches out and takes little one by her chin. “She’s still intact, even after we put down her sister.”

It doesn’t really matter to Erwin how terrible Levi’s behaviour gets. He’ll keep his neko, even if he has to take him apart piece by piece, Erwin will get that total surrender. He will settle for nothing less.

Baby boy adjusts to his mutilated hands with physical therapy exercises. If the devocalisation calmed him, the declawing has figuratively put him to sleep. His moods are even but low, quiet and slow and a little lost, but it's the docile attitude that Erwin has desired from the start. A feisty feral can only become worthwhile in surrender, and his baby boy is surrendering to the knowledge that bad behaviour will not be tolerated.

Holding crayons and turning pages are still difficult tasks, but he improves a little bit more with each lesson. When he's not using his hands, baby boy keeps them balled up and hidden from sight, and he tries to use them as little as possible.

;;;

It wakes Mike up in the ungodly hours of early Saturday morning, three months after he trapped Nana. The scent of heat is thick, her arousal thicker as she grinds her pelvis against his thigh, her brows drawn tight in agony. Levi has his face pressed into Erwin’s chest, his declawed hands over his ears as if Nana were making any noise at all. She’s silent.

It doesn't take much movement in the bed for Mike to raise her up so that their hips align, even less effort for him to push inside of her. He takes her in lazy rocking, more grinding than thrusting, and still she remains so perfectly silent, not even a gasp, until his knot drives a breathy moan from the back of her throat. It feels so good when she cums, her sex clinching, dragging him deeper inside. He could stay here all morning just like this.

She keeps rubbing herself on him, so as soon as he's pulling out of her, Erwin is switching places with Mike. He spoons Levi, and together, they watch as Erwin fucks the little one. Levi succumbs to his own building heat shortly after breakfast, and the weekend passes with a haze of lewd sounds and orgasms.

Monday morning, both nekos are tucked into Nana’s nest in the guest bedroom closet, and when Mike and Erwin come home again in the evening, they’re still there, sleeping soundly. They're glued at the hip during bath time, while Erwin gives lessons, even at dinner. Something about the shared cycle seems to _finally_ initiate the deeper bond between them, and Levi purrs when he gives her affection, now. Mike thinks that maybe the boy doesn't learn anything until he loses something, but his fingertips are a small price to pay for genuine peace between the felines.

Now that they're settling in to being a family proper, Mike and Erwin go to the police station to file curfew slips, allowing the nekos to go in public unsupervised. The slip details their address and the allowed locations the nekos can travel to within a set timeframe, creating a perimeter for them to move around inside of. Being caught outside of their perimeter will result in a hefty fine, and if any crimes are committed, the nekos will be confined until the owners come to sort out the trouble they've caused. The whole process takes an hour with the repetitive explanations, and then finally they can sign the curfew slips. One goes on file and the other is for the nekos to carry every time they leave the house.

Grocery shopping will be their only task for now, so Erwin focuses their lessons on counting and handling money. Levi can read a simple shopping list but Nana still struggles to identify words that are longer than a few letters, so they'll always need to go together.

For a practice run, Erwin gets them ready on a Wednesday evening. It's the quietest day for grocery stores. Mike watches as he puts them in coats, gives them a list, their curfew slips, and shopping bags, then makes them clasp hands.

“Don't let go of each other no matter what,” he orders sternly. “We will be a little ways behind you if you need us.”

The journey to the store goes perfectly, and the hounds wait on a bench near the checkout while the nekos shop. When they've got everything on the list, they come to pay, and Mike watches closely at how Nanaba counts out the money to give the clerk, receiving her change and putting away just like she's been taught. Each neko puts a bag over their shoulders, and clasping hands once more, begin to make their way home.

The walk is quiet, and in fact, Mike’s home is in view when a bicycle police officer takes interest in them.

From the distance, Mike can see the officer check their collars and their curfew slips, and Nana’s fear carries over the breeze. He and Erwin catch up just before the police officer dismisses the nekos, and they thank the officer out of politeness. Nana's shoulders are shaking, so Mike tucks her into his side, promising her that she did very well in her first trip out. Levi is less unnerved by the stop, so Erwin only needs to kiss his hair.

“I never want to do that again,” his little one cries as soon as they're in the privacy of their home. She circles her arms around Erwin’s waist and buries her face in his chest. “Please don't make me.”

Erwin shares a look with Mike and then he untangles Nana from around him as he says, “You'll feel safer again even once we wash our hands and remove the outside scent, okay, little one?”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (didn't proofread so feel free to point out typos or weird passages) thank you for reading :)

Another feral ends up in Mike’s traps not long after the nekos’ first grocery store trip alone, and this time, Nana stays inside while he and Erwin deal with the trespasser. Animal control takes the feral alive, and while the hounds have an option to adopt it, they have no interest, so the feral will be euthanised instead. Mike doesn't pretend that his little one is ignorant of this. She’s swaddling herself into her nest when he's done washing his hands, her self-soothing purrs are loud in a forceful way, desperate to keep herself calm. He greets her by tickling her scruff, pinching without grabbing it fully. 

 

Mike sniffs at her ear and it flicks at the gentle rushes of air. “Do you like it here, little one?” 

 

She chirrups at him, leaning her head back so that his mouth is in her hair, but that's not an answer, so he takes hold of her neck to get her attention. In an instant, she's tense and still, barely breathing but still purring. 

 

“Do you, Nanaba?”

 

“Yes,” she squeaks, so quiet and timid. Shy, almost. Definitely afraid. 

 

Mike eases his hold. “What about it?”

 

For a few minutes, she's quiet as she rearranges the new additions to her nest. Early yesterday afternoon, Mike brought home new blankets and pillows to make it a proper, deep, fluffy place for her to seek comfort. They washed the new additions and removed the foreign scents, then he fucked her on top of them so that the oxytocin would be present when she next came back. She bundles a pillow beneath her body, kneads it with a particular pace, and then lays her head down besides Mike’s unbusy hand. 

 

“I have two mates and a… bonded brother,” she starts. “You give me food and I don't have to beg for it. And water. And treats. And this nest. You're... You're very nice to me.”

 

Mike slides his hand under her chin and scratches, watching as her ears flatten, eyes closing with enjoyment. 

 

“Why’re you still afraid?”

 

Her ears raise in alarm and the purring comes to a stop. Mike looks into big, frightened eyes. 

 

“It's okay to tell the truth,” Mike croons, a low rumble that she whimpers to in response. “Won't punish you.”

 

“I'm afraid,” she murmurs, then presses her face into the pillow, her own hands snaking into her hair and tugging at fistfuls. Though muffled, Mike hears it when she says, “You kill felines. I'm afraid you'll kill me, too.”

 

Mike noses at her crown and when she lifts her head, he licks at her nose in two long laps before he kisses her forehead. “You're safe,” he tells her. “You and Levi are special.”

 

If it placates her, it's momentarily, because after a brief pause, she asks, “Do you want more?”

 

“No,” he answers swiftly. “You two are enough.”

 

“But I have more sisters and brothers out there!” Nana raises up and butts her head under his chin. 

 

“And as soon as I know  _ where,” _ Mike begins, and he doesn't have to finish his threat. She knows what will happen as soon as he knows where her family den is located, and Nana slaps her hands over her ears to drown out the sound of his voice. 

 

“Mate,” she acknowledges, at his mercy. He pets her hair. 

 

;;;

 

A feline sickness is going through the city as the snow begins falling and collecting without melting. Mike and Erwin hear of it from their veterinarian, with a warning to keep their pets inside until it passes in a couple of weeks. They take extra caution, but somehow, baby boy catches it. 

 

As soon as he shows symptoms, he's too sick to travel, so Mike quarantines him inside the hallway bathroom. The tiny bathtub is filled with spare bedding so that he can sleep, but the way he cycles between retching and whining, Levi is obviously not sleeping much, if at all. Nana hangs out around the closed door, wanting to answer Levi's need for comfort. She can be pulled away for chores, lessons, and meals, but at bedtime she refuses to leave the door. Levi comes out of it after a few days, but he remains delicate and tired for almost two weeks afterward. Nana dotes on him in such a natural way that Mike can easily imagine how she must have cared for her younger siblings. 

 

Life resumes again and the winter brings them weather more harsh than the previous years. Living this far north, Mike knows a substantial amount of their feral neko population is culled through nature, so he can't imagine the trouble cities in warmer climates must go through the keep their streets clean. The permanent change in the conditions means more ferals are wandering through the neighbourhood in search of somewhere safe to hunker down in, and it's not uncommon for Mike to catch a midnight glimpse of someone poking their head over his fence. The smell of blood lingers enough to make them reconsider. 

 

The presence of so many felines does strange things to his little one. She becomes restless and irritable, seeking more of Mike’s attention and affection. He gives her enough without spoiling her, but it only serves to make her even more needy. 

 

“Mate,” she whines high in her throat at bath time. The water sloshes around as she shifts yet again, like her entire body is a tightly-wound spring ready to snap under pressure. “Mate, please.”

 

Carefully, Mike sets his hand on her scruff and she calms down a little. He asks, “What, little one?”

 

“Please,” she murmurs, sinking down into the water. The word does not tell him much, but maybe she doesn't even know what she begs for. Beside her, Levi leans in and nuzzles her claiming bites. Eyes closed, she pushes back into him, clearly a demand for more. 

 

Erwin's watching her from the door jamb, and after both nekos are dried and dressed, he pulls Mike aside. 

 

“This isn't the same as her heat,” Erwin states. “Is she falling ill?”

 

An hour’s worth of research gives them an unfavourable answer, and after a short call to the veterinarian’s office, they learn that she's suffering from breeding fever. She'll continue to be clingy and needy until she's either impregnated or the psychological fever fades. It should ease the intensity of the fever to withhold sex, so that her brain doesn't become hopeful. They’re instructed to continue to go about daily life the same, and make sure to give her more sex than usual  _ only _ if heat arises, or else she might feel abandoned.

 

_ “Unless you plan on providing her with a litter,” _ the vet assistant tells them over the phone,  _ “then it's best to find something for her to put her efforts into.” _

 

Erwin brings her home a little tomato plant. Where he managed to find a nursery with seedlings at this point in the year, Mike is unsure, but he's grateful for it when he sees how his little one absolutely adores the plant. The next day, Erwin brings home a picture book about gardening and Mike has tiny terracotta pots, potting soil, and a variety of seeds. Both nekos take a consuming interest to growing things on the windowsills, especially compared to the piles of snow outside. Things like pansies flourish in their tiny pots, while the tomato plants need more sunlight than they can provide in the dark winters like this. 

 

Nanaba continues to need affection and Mike provides it in measured amounts, and when her heat finally comes around, Mike is glad for it. He's been holding back on fucking her, and he sinks into the wet warmth between her legs like he's been thirsting for it. 

 

She’s pliant beneath him, throaty coos and whimpers filling the bedroom, and baby boy sneaks in at some point, purring quietly, laying his chin on the bed to watch. Mike rolls Nana onto her belly and raises her hips up to meet his own and knots her, rubs her distending belly. He gets them settled together, spooning, and she reaches out to rub her wrists’ glands against Levi’s, filling the room with a cloud of oxytocin as they scent mark.

 

“Mate,” she whispers, pushing her head back, exposing her throat to Mike in submission. “I want to carry yours.” In the nonsensical haze of her breeding fever and heat, she slips her hands under his, feeling the bulge of him inside of her.  

 

Mike lowers his mouth into her hair and nuzzles the back of one black ear. He doesn’t know how to answer her instinct-driven plea. It’s not possible and even if it were, Mike would have removed the possibility swiftly. Nekos should never reproduce. Efforts to drive down their population controls only the domesticated, and it only takes two ferals to undo that hard work. 

 

“I’ve seen half-breeds,” Levi whispers, and Nana perks up with a too-hopeful whine. There’s a dark emotion coming from his glands, like sadness and disgust, as he explains, “Once. The litter was small and deformed, and died right after they were born. But you could smell it on them, they were made by a hound.”

 

“Inbreeding,” Mike dismisses, but the look Levi gives Nana... Regardless, the breeding fever fades when the heat does, and her womb remains empty, as every neko womb always should.

 

;;;

 

Their winters are long, so every year since university, Mike and Erwin have gone down south to visit Erwin’s father. It breaks up the endless months of snow in a nice way, and while they’re unsure of making the journey with their pets, they can’t find any legitimate reasons to break the routine.

 

To fly with felines requires several certificates of health and wellness, and it’s easy to provide that paperwork when they book their arrangements. Erwin sits the little one and the baby boy down several days before the journey and explains it to them: the expectations of behaviour, the travelling, the cultural differences of the south. There will no doubt be more ferals running around, so they should expect to have their collars inspected much more often. The south is warmer, too, so instead of the coats they wear here to protect their bodies from the smells of the world, the hounds purchase long cardigans for them to wear. 

 

“What about my hands?” Levi rasps in the bath the afternoon before they are to depart. He rests the extremities on the ledge of the tub. They’ve healed completely, neat scar tissue showing the precise skill of the surgeon. 

 

“You know,” Erwin begins, kneeling down in front of the noirette. “In the south, owned nekos undergo much more cosmetic surgery to distinguish them from ferals. Most have hands like you.” 

 

He takes Levi’s hands and entwines the declawed fingers of them, and then reaches up to scratch both black ears at once. “You’ll see a lot of clipped ears and removed tails, too.”

 

It seems to calm the boy but it makes the little one nervous. Erwin leans in and kisses her forehead, telling her, “You’ll be alright.”

 

After the felines are put to bed, the hounds pack everything into one big suitcase, and the next morning, they medicate Levi and Nana before they leave. It helps the pets sleep through the bumpy flight, though they wake up in the last hour. They take turns peering out of the window, marvelling at the clouds and the horizon, and at landing, they bury their noses into one another for comfort in the turbulence. 

 

Henry Smith is an active man even at nearly sixty, thanks to his tenured career at a prestigious university providing him the means to pursue hobbies while remaining financially stable. He greets his son and de facto son-in-law with a warm embrace, and extends that to the felines.

 

“So small!” He exclaims when he can draw both into his arms without trouble. “You said young, I didn’t think you meant this young.”

 

Levi is standoffish to the embrace of a stranger, but Nana takes it with big eyes and only a small amount of fear seeping from her glands. Mike runs his fingers along her scruff.

 

It turns out that Mike needs to keep his hand on her neck, because more and more negative emotions are pouring out of her. While Levi seems to be tolerating the travel with minimal comfort, Nana is needing more than enough for both of them. At one point, while they’re standing at the baggage carousel, Mike has to pull her into his chest, wrap his jacket around her in a semblance of privacy in such a crowded space, and scruff her until she goes into tonic immobility. It’s cruel, but it exhausts her past the point of caring about the world outside of Mike’s arms. It forces her focus onto him, and it’s enough to get them all the way to Henry’s home.

 

There are felines everywhere, with various combinations of clipped ears, bobbed tails, and declawed hands. All types of gradients and coat patterns, too. As if Nana’s unaltered appearance weren’t strange enough, her black fur and gradient compared to the white-blonde of her hair draws attention, so Mike keeps her tucked into his side.

 

Washing hands and removing scents comes first, all four of them squeezed into the bathroom to get it taken care of. They’ll pile into Erwin’s childhood bedroom for their stay. There’s only a twin bed, but plenty of floorspace, so they build a bed on an air mattress on the floor so that they can all sleep together. 

 

Henry and Erwin catch up while they make lunch, and during that time, Mike renews his claiming bites on both Nana and Levi. He licks them clean, covering them in his scent and saliva, creating a cloud of contentedness in the bedroom so that they’ll always be calm here. The effect of the bites are more pronounced in the baby boy than in the little one, and Levi mewls, tail swept aside to present himself for mating, so Mike rubs his scruff until he dozes off in a light docility. 

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for frottage between 'sibling'

They're all sitting at the table at lunchtime when she feels a tight cramping evolve so suddenly that she has to drop her silverware and clutch her abdomen. A hot, heavy pulse blooms in her brain and spreads down her entire body, taking her consciousness with it. The feeling leaves her hazy and off-kilter, and she tries to look around for Mike but he's not sitting in his chair anymore.

Hands finds her jaw and tilt her head back and there he is. Nana whimpers up at him, unsure of what's happening. It doesn't feel like a regular heat, and it doesn't feel like the spell that Mike called ‘breeding fever’ either. She wants her mate inside of her suddenly, all urgent and bottomless need, but her heat has never started off so wrong like this before.

“Mate,” she whispers. She's afraid. This is unknown and they're not even at home, they're in a strange place.

Remembering suddenly that they're in the middle of a meal, Nana wrenches herself from his hands and curls into herself.

“Fascinating,” she can hear the hound called Mister Henry say.

“This is unusual,” Erwin explains quietly. “Little one has never smelt this way.”

“Yeah,” Mike is agreeing quietly. He's still standing behind her, and though he doesn't pull her face back up, he's got one hand sliding from her jaw to her scruff. There, he strokes gently.

“Erwin,” Levi rasps. He sounds pained, and when Nana chances a glance at him, he's got both hands over his nose and mouth.

“I'll get her upstairs,” Erwin offers, and Mike moves back so that Erwin can get a hold of Nana. She buries her face into his chest as he carries her up to his old bedroom.

“Tell me, little one,” he starts when they're alone. Something in his scent is beckoning to her now, telling her to trust in the safety he provides. She's never had this kind of reaction before.

“What?” She asks, having forgotten his question as soon as he stopped speaking.

Again, Erwin asks, “Tell me, little one, are you in heat?”

She can only look at him, a little shocked, as something wet seeps down between her legs. On the next inhale, she smells blood, and she looks down at her lap. Erwin smells it, too, and he wastes no time carrying her to the bathroom and stripping her naked.

Her underwear are soaked through but her trousers are still clean. It's only a little blood.

The confusion is replaced with panic. She looks to Erwin and his expression gives away neither good nor bad, so she clutches at his shirt.

“I'm dying,” Nana whines, and Erwin doesn't deny her when she tries to climb into his lap. The blood gets into his clothing, too, but he shushes her and runs his fingers through her hair in a soothing way.

“You're not dying,” he says finally. “Your body is cleaning itself.”

Nana doesn't understand this. She's never seen it happen. It hurts. “Why?”

Erwin presses his palm against her abdomen. “Tell me the truth, little one.”

She tries to sit up to look at Erwin and he allows it, though his face continues to give nothing away.

“Have you and Levi fucked?”

Immediately, she shakes her head. They're only bonded, not mated. Only the hounds use her and Levi in that way, they never use one another. They may frot or rub or kiss, even scent mark one another and lick one another, but they never have sex.

“Shh, don't worry,” Erwin coos. “Let's get you bathed.”

The little amount of blood that stains her underwear is the only amount that comes out of her. Just as quick as it came, the cramping disappears into a low warmth in her belly and she stops bleeding. Per Erwin's orders, she lays on the makeshift bed all alone for the afternoon, and at dinner, when Levi comes to retrieve her, he's barely poked his head in the door when he freezes.

“Do you smell yourself?” He rasps.

Nana shakes her head.

“God,” Levi swears. “It's like a bad infection. What is wrong with you?”

She shies back from his remark, even though he's always this blunt. “Come eat.” Levi waves his hand in a welcoming gesture. “Mister Henry made fish.”

She licks her lips at the thought and gets up. Conversation around the table is the same as normal, but she knows something is wrong with the way Mike keeps grabbing her thigh under the table. One hand overlaps on the small limb, fingers digging in, but she keeps her reactions to herself.

At bedtime, Mike undresses her with careful hands, though his nose barely leaves her throat gland the entire time. He's taking in her scent as his hands take in her body, a sensually slow journey that makes her want to turn away and hide with embarrassment. After this long, it shouldn't make her squirm; she should react the way Levi does, with her head thrown back and her mouth slack.

Still, she whimpers, “Mate,” and exposes her neck like a pathetic thing. Right there in the bed while Levi is getting his ears licked, Mike takes Nana from behind, and Levi holds her hands while it happens. His touch feels good and safe as Mike’s knot makes her want to scratch the hound's eyes out. Her body stretches to accept it eagerly, but it makes her cramp again, badly enough that she tries to pull herself away from him, but he takes her hips and presses himself fully inside again. The cry that leaves her mouth is weak, so Mike strokes her scruff to comfort her like he always does, but she doesn't want that touch right now. As soon as his knot begins to deflate, she scrambles away from him and into the center of the bed, tucking her face into Erwin's side.

Mike tuts a negative at her and she feels his hands hooking around the backs of her knees in that way he does before he usually pulls her close to eat her out, and unthinking, she kicks him.

Toes catch in his nose as she throws her leg up, and it breaks his nose entirely in one motion. Mike pulls back, hand assessing the wound, and as he looks down into his bloodying palm, he growls. His spike of anger is a sharp and terrifying scent that has her scurrying behind Erwin and Levi.

“It's just instinct, Mike,” Erwin dismisses. “Give her time.”

Something in that seems to cool his aggression instantly, and he goes to clean himself again. While he's in the bathroom, Erwin runs his fingers up and down her spine, until she's a boneless puddle for him, and then he pushes his two longest fingers inside of her cum-slick hole. It's not done for pleasure, that much is clear by the way he pokes around at the back, like he's searching for a specific thing. After a few moments, he withdraws his hand and licks it clean.

“You taste different, too,” he nearly purrs, if hounds could make such a sound. All anyone can comment on is the change in her body, changes she can't smell either, and she puts her head down in humility. She doesn't understand what's going on but everyone around her seems to know what it is, yet no one is telling her anything.

;

After a first rough day, their time in the south evens out into the relaxing vacation it's meant to be. Any time they go out, Levi's declawed hands get him through collar inspections without any trouble, but because Nana is unaltered, she has to let strangers in close to read her identification tags repeatedly. It takes less time to get used to this than she would like, but as with all things in her new life, she submits.

On their final night, Mike and Erwin go out for the evening and leave the nekos with Mister Henry. Unlike a bedtime of reading stories like at home, he puts on a movie for them while the two curl up on the sofa, basking in the novelty of such entertainment, and when it's over, they know their routine and perform it before putting themselves in bed. It's odd to lay there with Levi while their mates are gone.

“I miss them,” Levi whispers, and as if it will quell his emotions, he pushes his face into the gland on her neck and breathes in deep. She does the same on him and she can feel a loose comfort wrapping around her from the mix of three unique scents. It's easy to pick out Levi's, the pine tree and mint, and below it, Mike is a maple apricot, Erwin a much more subtle cedar and smoked meat and river water. It's a cacophony of deliciousness.

Baby boy's hands find her shoulder blades beneath her sleeping gown and he begins to knead, falling quickly into his purring. She lets her head fall back, exposing the entire of her neck, and he makes a possessive sound when he nuzzles in. Slipping one leg between his thighs so that they're interlocked, she lets her hips grind goallessly against him and he happily returns the gesture.

“You smell so good,” Levi whispers, consonants caught on breath, a heady lust pouring from the gland under her nose. “You smell only like them, not like you at all.”

“Is that bad?” The little one gropes around Levi's waist until she makes her way down to his tail, giving it a playful tug that makes him nip at her chin in retaliation.

“Just odd.” He grabs her thigh and hikes it up, positioning it where he wants it so that he can get traction on his sex and his mouth falls open with a needy, breathy moan. She tugs his tail once more and his gland releases such bliss as he begs, “Harder.”

She does what he asks and he keeps grinding against her until he cums with a choked, rasping cry, and then she dives under the covers, intent on licking him clean. It tickles and he twitches, and then when she's done, he plummets into sleep and it drags her along, too.

In the morning, their mates are back, and they pack up to leave with a strange mix of homesickness and a desire to stay. The hounds don't have to leave to go to work here; they've spent all day, everyday together and it's brought their bond to a deeper, more secure place. Not to say that Nana was at all insecure about being owned, but the reassurance is nice.

Her life is good now. She's cared for and looked after, she's safe as a pet, safe in a way that she never thought would be possible. She has a warm bed, two mates, a new sibling of sorts, and her belly’s never empty. It's fair, she thinks, if they use her like this. Even if it embarrasses her, the sex feels good, too, because hounds have knots instead of barbs. Back before she had a home, she'd heard the mothers talking about barbs; how the pain of the barbs drowned out the pain of heat. She's grateful she never experienced it. Life is easy. Her mate is also Levi’s mate, and Levi's is hers, too, and it feels safe. She's alive and she's cared for. There's no scrounging and foraging and digging through trash, no scouting out vacant places to sleep.

Of course, most of the things she did, she did for her siblings, and there's a gut wrenching tightness in her throat when she thinks of them. There's one more littermate Nana’s age, and she hopes that he's taking care of their sisters and brothers now. She hopes he's not dead.

Just the thought, and she feels guilty for her good fortune. She thinks of Plum and she closes her eyes, telling herself that it was only a bad dream, but bad dreams don't break collarbones.

She's lucky, she knows, that something in her scent made Mike decide to keep her, because otherwise, her life would be a short and miserable thing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this when I woke up in an anxiety attack at 0200 so I'm not sure what direction this chapter is trying to go


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: forced abortion, biting, removal of teeth

The nekos are restless after travelling, so Erwin writes them a list and sends them to the grocery store. As soon as the door shuts behind them, Mike finally says what he’s been meaning to say for some time now, to fully address the problem that Erwin is so sure will sort itself out. The next open appointment with their veterinarian isn’t for two weeks, and when Mike explains the situation, the vet tech tells him that the problem will be resolved by that time, not to worry.

 

When the day of the appointment finally rolls around, the problem has not resolved, and he has to practically drag her from her nest. Erwin comes, too, and Levi stays home.

 

“How are little one’s heats?” The veterinarian asks, referring to Nana by her legal first name. “Her file shows she went through breeding fever about six weeks ago.”

 

“That was the last one she had.” Mike shifts his weight to his other foot. On the examination table, Nana waits. 

 

“And she’s had no contact with a tomcat?”

 

Mike and Erwin both shake their heads. 

 

“Alright. Let’s get a sonogram and look first, to see if we need to draw blood.” Their vet turns to a cabinet and unlocks it, withdrawing a small machine. “Have her lay back, and lift her dress up.”

 

The machine powers up and the screen shows flashing that Mike cannot discern, but when the probe settles low between Nana’s thin hips and presses in, Mike knows exactly what the little white pebbles in black sacs are.

 

“We’ve got three in there,” the vet announces, then looks around a little more and declares, “Four.”

 

Mike looks at Nana when the scent of terror begins to emerge, then comes to stand beside her, taking her hand and squeezing. She whimpers.

 

“It’s okay,” he coos. “We’ll get it out of you.”

 

The terror spikes, his neko jerks away from him, from the vet, and falls off the exam table into a protective crouch. Already, the veterinarian is reaching into another cabinet to pull out a syringe.

 

“Let me tranq her to calm her down.”

 

Nana hisses as the vet comes near her, ears down, elliptical pupils thin slits, but in the end, she doesn’t fight when the syringe pierces her thigh to administer the drug. Within moments, the terror fades and Nana begins to slump, awake but artificially calm now. Mike hoists her back onto the exam table to finish the visit. Blood is drawn, as well as amniotic fluid, to determine the parentage. Her litter are half-breeds all right, and it boils into dread in Mike’s gut. He didn’t think he would need to ever be here, like this, signing the paperwork for removal because of himself.

 

Half-breeds are a genetic rarity. Neko and hound DNA is extremely similar except for a single chromosome that makes all the difference. Fertilised eggs don’t make it to implantation, the blastocysts usually collapse within a day of conception, and any that do make it to the womb usually spontaneously abort when a heart fails to properly form. As the statistics stand right now, less than one in one hundred thousand interbreed couplings end in a confirmed pregnancy. Of those, there is only one birth on record, and it’s just like Levi described-- deformed, one foot in the womb with one foot in the grave, dead within a few hours, unable to survive in the world. 

 

Their veterinarian asks only once if they’re sure about having a removal done, then asks if they plan to spay.

 

“Will this happen again?” Erwin asks. Spaying would remove her heats, too, something they want to avoid. 

 

“If I could say ‘no’ then I would, but I have to tell you that there is a risk, even though it’s virtually zero. Young felines tend to have some hyperfertility during the first year of heats, which may explain why she's still carrying.” The vet flips through the clinic schedule for an opening. “How’s Friday morning? That is, if she doesn’t spontaneously abort. We wouldn’t charge you a cancellation fee if that happened.”

 

Erwin makes the appointment for a removal sans spay. They’ll leave her intact. 

 

After the appointment, Nana begins to withdraw, and she takes a large amount of the hounds’ wardrobe with her into the nest. Thursday night, Mike throws everything out into the hallway so that he can wash it, knowing that when she comes back in the afternoon tomorrow, she'll be confined to this closet for several days. 

 

“You understand what’s happening to you?” Mike asks as he throws the last pillow outside of the closet, leaving her huddling in the bare corner. 

 

“Yes, but  _ mate,” _ she whines. 

 

“They aren’t viable,” Mike reminds her yet again. They’ve had this conversation a dozen times-- it is the only conversation they’ve had all week. “They’re going to die no matter what. I’m sorry, little one.”

 

“No, you’re not.” Her voice breaks and she buries her face in her knees. Mike reaches out to pet her hair.

 

“I am.” 

 

She has to skip dinner that night, and she sleeps in the bed with everyone because Mike knows she can’t really leave, but he can smell the flight risk on her. He takes her into the clinic for the procedure before dawn, and picks her up after work in the car. She’s still knocked out from the drugs, and will probably sleep through the weekend. Mike has held her limp, but the medically-induced slumber gives a new meaning to the word. It’s almost as if she were dead.

 

He supposes a part of her is.

 

Levi settles into the nest with her. She’s bandaged heavily, so there a no wounds to lick, but the neko bathes away the scent of sadness clinging to her glands. In the middle of the night, Mike wakes to quiet crying, to Nana pressing her nose into his neck and whimpering lowly, wetly, pathetically. 

 

“Why’re you out of your nest?” He murmurs. Levi stirs a little bit before he nuzzles into Erwin and falls still again. 

 

It’s stuttering on a shaky breath, but he thinks she says, “Wanna be with you.”

 

;;;

 

Her bleeding tapers off after two weeks, at which time she receives a check-up and a declaration of good health. Sleeping still takes up most of her day, but Mike is beginning to suspect a depression rather than a physical exhaustion. So the hounds take their nekos on a rare trip by car, deep into the city, to eat at an upscale establishment that also serves neko-friendly ice creams and cakes. 

 

Levi's tail swishes in appreciation as he holds his bowl up in front of his mouth and laps up the frozen dessert, purring loudly with eyes heavy-lidded. He sits pretty on his pillow on the floor beside the table, but Nana is more lackluster, slumping into herself and almost ignoring the bowl in her hands. 

 

“Little one,” Erwin simply says, both a warning and an admonishment. 

 

Her eyes flick up to him and then down again, and she raises her bowl to lick the ice cream once before setting it on the table and muttering, “Thank you.”

 

In the privacy of their home later that evening, Mike scruffs her into kneeling, then tears into her, telling her all the ways in which her behaviour was disrespectful, how it reflects badly on them. How ungrateful she is. She looks up at him with empty eyes and mumbles out something that Mike definitely hears the first time, but demands she repeat anyway. “What you say?”

 

“I don't care,” she repeats, tongue heavy on the  _ t.  _ “I don't care if you looked bad. You didn't care when--”

 

“Now ain't the time to start exercising your voice,” Mike warns. She never speaks more than two or three words at a time. “You get up to your nest and stay there.”

 

He can see the way she bristles at the order before she finally obeys, and he leaves her there all night, coming to retrieve her in the earliest dredges of Sunday morning. Her bites have long healed over, so he renews them all and then licks between her legs for good measure, delighted to find that she tastes like herself again. Erwin bites her during the afternoon nap time, making her squeal, then she’s screaming.

 

Levi covers his ears and ducks his chin while Mike slaps his hand over her mouth.

 

“Knock that off,” he commands, and she does, but a fierce pain blooms in his palm. Mike snatches his hand back, shouting, and then wraps it around her throat over her collar. There’s blood in her mouth, dripping from the sharp points of her teeth, in the realisation Mike pushes her down by his hold on her, until she sputters and coughs, eyes lighting with fear and desperation. He brings his lips to her ear and growls, “No one is hurting you.”

 

Her hands come to his one around her neck and scratch at him, begging for air again, and he gives one last squeeze before he pulls his hand back as if the contact burns.

 

She’s bitten his palm, almost torn out a fleshy chunk. Mike retreats to the bathroom, Erwin follows, and they look the wound over before cleaning it properly and wrapping it. When Mike tells Erwin what will happen now, the other hound does not try to dissuade him.

 

His little one is still on the bed when they come back into the bedroom. A bruise is setting in where Mike choked her. 

 

“Baby boy,” Erwin says, crooking his finger in a come-here motion. “Let’s put on a movie for you.”

 

Levi perks up immediately, sliding down from the bed to follow Erwin. Nana watches them go, then looks back to Mike.

 

“You,” he sneers, jerking his head toward the bathroom, “get in here.”

 

She is slow to obey until Mike coos at her, then she approaches with clear uncertainty in her eyes. There’s some fear in the air, and rightfully so. Erwin joins them in the bathroom shortly after, and what he holds in his hands catches the little one’s eye because terror pours into the air around them.

 

Erwin sits on the closed lid of the toilet. “Come here.”

 

Nana looks between the two hounds, skittish, but listens. Her steps are slow and her breathing comes shallow and rapid. Once within reach, Erwin takes her by the waist and turns her around, pulling her into his lap.

 

“Cross your arms.” Erwin holds his hands out and when she obeys, he takes her wrists and pulls her arms tight around herself. She tries to look back at him, but she can’t, and so she looks at Mike with big eyes and the beginnings of hyperventilation.

 

“Mate,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Feet flat on the floor,” Mike says instead of acknowledging her.

 

“Mate--”

 

“I won’t tell you again.” Mike is close now, and when she finally does what he instructed, he covers her feet with his own larger ones, holding her down, immobilising her. “Open your mouth.”

 

Nana is not hiding her terror now. She looks at Mike like she would do anything to avoid being punished. “Mate, please, no, I’m sorry--”

 

Erwin shushes her while Mike dons the latex gloves and cleans the pliers with a rag dampened with rubbing alcohol. She stutters out apologies, eyes on his hands. 

 

“I won’t do it again!” Nana jerks back when Mike taps the pliers on her chin.

 

“Open up.”

 

“You gave Levi chances, mate, please!”

 

“Levi had to be tamed,” Erwin interjects. “You’ve been perfectly behaved. You’re acting out. This is not tolerated. You  _ do not _ bite.”

 

“Please,” she breathes.

 

“Open up,” Mike says, harsher on the second time.

 

She whines, but opens her mouth, shaking, hyperventilating, fear tangible and thick enough to taste even without breathing in. 

 

“Good girl,” he praises, though he knows it does nothing for her. “If you’re good, I’ll only take the eight. Can you be good?”

 

His little one squeezes her eyes shut, nods like it kills her while the smell of urine mingles in the air. Erwin readies his hand on her scruff.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for choking/abuse

“Open up.”

Pulling her lips back, she reveals her teeth: upper and lower central incisors remain, then a large gap where she’s missing all of her lateral incisors and cuspids. Erwin checks the clots lodged where teeth once were and finds them intact. The gums are closing up quickly.

“Good. Does it still hurt?”

She closes her mouth and shakes her head, eyes downturned. He scratches behind her ear.

“You understand what you did wrong?”

A nod.

“Alright. Let’s go water the plants.”

The small arrangement of pots in their window sills seem to be the only things she’s interested in anymore. They tied the tomato vine to a chopstick last week so that it would stay upright, and today, the first little flowers are blooming on it, spreading the crisp scent through the kitchen. Erwin measures out the appropriate amount of water and lets Nana pour it into the soil, then they do the same for the pots of thriving pansies.

Mike and Levi return as they’re finishing up that task. Erwin watches, pleased to see that she doesn’t flinch anymore when Mike bends to kiss her cheek.

Erwin knows she’s hurting in a way that he cannot understand, and while he knows that her fated litter was just as much his fault as Mike’s, she seems to be clinging to him more than Mike, especially after Mike was the one who wielded the pliers. It may have been Erwin who held her still, but she’s more afraid of Mike.

Levi attempts to give her greeting affection and she takes it passively, not returning the nose to throat gesture.

“Be nice,” Mike chastises, and slowly, Nana dips her head to nuzzle Levi’s gland, though she never takes her eyes away from Mike’s.

It’s a challenge, but a low, rumbling growl has her averting her gaze.

Erwin understands her hostility, however, that does not mean he condones it. They give her better life than she would have had out on the streets, but lately, she’s been looking out of the windows with the seedling scent of longing and a daydream written across her face. She’s bonded and imprinted; even if she left, she’d come back. She’s collared, registered, and owned; even if the authorities picked her up, she’d come back home, where she belongs, here with them. This grieving aggression will be tamed and on the other side, she’ll understand that everything they do is for her own good. Even though it took months, his baby boy came to that realisation. Little one will, too.

At bath time that evening, her hostility manifests as a refusal, and Mike, so thoroughly done with this two-week temper tantrum, scruffs her into tonic immobility and dunks her. It leaves her panting and sputtering, her body a confused, presenting wreck. The immobility brought along the mating reflex. Mike uses that to bite her like Erwin bites, muscle deep.

The strict treatment eventually has her behaviour back in line after another week. Or at least, that’s how it appears.

Erwin comes home from work and as Levi’s putting his coat away, he catches a scent lingering in his boy’s hair. It brings up the memory of the stray neko he put down in the backyard. Beside him, Mike’s nose works, and they share a look without a word. Their nekos went to the grocery store today. Erwin shakes his head at Mike-- now isn’t the time.

They wait until it’s three for three, grocery trips and lingering scents.

“You run into strays?” Mike asks bluntly. The coats and shoes get put away.

“Sibling,” Nana corrects him hotly, and it takes nothing for Mike to have her back slamming against the wall, large hand wrapping around her throat.

“Baby boy,” Erwin says, to take the focus away from the little one. Levi looks up at him with fearful eyes. “What happened?”

“When we go out to the store, Nana disappears on the way home,” Levi confesses readily. “I don’t know what happens.”

Erwin looks back at her in time to see Mike squeeze, and he puts a calming hand on the hound’s shoulder. He releases the strangled neko and she falls, a gasping heap. To earn her trust, and ultimately her compliance, Erwin kneels and strokes a hand down her spine.

“What happens, little one?” He inquires calmly, quietly.

“I...I give them the... extra food I buy.” She sucks in air. “They’re dying without me.”

“And they should,” Mike growls above them, making Nana whimper.

“Please, mate,” and she pleads to Erwin, exposing her throat, eyes down, truly submissive for the first time in weeks. “Please, mate... they’re dying.”

“How many?”

“Only a few are alive. Our mother is gone, the kits can’t take care of themselves,” she begs, coughs. “They need me.”

“Where are they?” Erwin cups her jaw, making her look at him.

“Don’t hurt them,” she whispers. “Please, just don’t hurt them.”

“Tell me where they are, little one,” Erwin croons sweetly, keeping his posture friendly. She looks him in the eye for a long moment, searching his intentions, and then her nose finds the gland in the wrist below the hand cupping her jaw.

“They're… they've found a place near the shop,” she explains, voice raspy from Mike’s chokehold. “Follow the scent until you lose it, then go a little further and you'll find them.”

Erwin relays the information to Hanji and the day after next, they call him and tell him to bring his little one to the shelter. Their other two mates come along but hang back, letting her hide in Erwin’s side in the unfamiliar territory.

The shelter is not like a kennel, rather, more like a repurposed inpatient facility. There are no cages, but instead rooms where groups or families will live out the remainder of their lives. It’s by no means a happy place to be. There’s the heavy smell of defeat and hopelessness, so thick it even pours from the young nekos here, even though they stand a chance at adoption.

Hanji brings them to a tiny room, maybe a janitorial closet in its previous life, where new paint still taints the air, and Nana freezes in the doorway at Erwin’s side.

She tugs Erwin’s coat sleeve. “Can I…?”

On the small cot is a bundle wrapped in bedding, two calico ears visible.

“This was the only one left alive when we got there,” Hanji explains. “The others were wrapped around her.”

“Go on,” Erwin urges. Nana wastes no time shedding all of her outer layers and approaching the cot, chirruping the whole time with no answer. It’s only when she’s settling herself alongside the bundle and drawing it into her chest that the stray neko startles, pulling its arms out of the blankets to wrap around her neck.

Nana purrs with such force that Erwin feels it in his chest.

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, everything Mike and Erwin have done to little one and baby boy, has been for their own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continued general warnings for content, but if you've made it this far, then really the only warning will be for pregnancy and birth.

Mike knows within the first forty-eight hours that bringing the stray home is a mistake. They’re only fostering it, but his little one gets attached. He knows it’ll break her heart when the stray gets adopted. He should’ve left it at the shelter, but having the stray sibling makes her so happy, makes her cooperative in a way that she hasn’t been since she was newly domesticated, Mike knows it’s a two-sided coin. He knows as soon as the stray  _ does _ get adopted, it’ll break her heart and she’ll act out. He took their litter from her, and this small thing is a replacement, even temporary. There’s heartbreak comin’ regardless. 

Levi is fond of the little stray. He takes a parental role to it, relieving Nana of the responsibility sometimes. The small thing is afraid of the hounds in a way that can’t be changed, so all the care falls on the two nekos. Nana grew up doing this same stuff with the rest of her siblings, so she’s a natural at it, and Levi learns through a mix of instinct and example quick enough. 

A family comes to have a look at the stray, and his little one’s distress is so clear that Mike has to send her and Levi away with Erwin for the duration of the visit. In the end, the family chooses not to commit. They’ve escaped heartbreak for now.

Mike keeps on eye on the way Nana clutches her small stray tighter and tighter to her chest with every interested visitor they receive.

-

Erwin restrains the little one on the day that the application for a closed adoption clears. 

“I love you so much,” Nana murmurs wetly, snot-nosed and rivers of tears running down her face. She kisses the calico ears and squeezes her eyes shut as she passes the stray to Levi with a final whisper, “So much.”

Erwin grips her shoulders and places himself between her and Levi as his baby boy retreats from the bedroom to deliver the child to a new family. Behind him, he can feel Nana digging her claws into his back, no doubt shredding the shirt in the process. The air fills with the smell of her longing, her love, her despair. He can hear her poorly hidden sniffles and choked cries. The only warning he has before she bolts is a sharp intake of breath, and Erwin throws an arm out as she darts past him, catching her around the midsection and pulling her back into his chest with a thud of her head that knocks the wind out of him.

“Please!” She begs, hands thrown before her and reaching out. “Mate, please, don’t let them take her!”

“Shhh,” Erwin coos, forcing air into his lungs, arms like vices to contain her thrashing. “Quiet now, little one. This is the only way she will live.”

“But she needs me,” Nana sobs. “She needs me, mate. I have to take care of her.”

“You know she will die if she stays here,” Erwin reasons. He and Mike only have room for two nekos in their lives. “This is the only way to give her a good life, little one. You know this.”

“Please,” she weeps regardless. “Please, don’t let them take her!”

“Quiet.” Erwin pulls her down to the floor with him, wrapping his legs around her form. She bucks with her whole body’s worth of strength. 

When Levi comes back empty handed and kneels before them, the fight leaves her body as if she’s died.

-

“It’s never been done.” Their vet clicks through a few things on the computer, and then twists the monitor around to show the hounds. “There’s a clinic in the South that’s looking for participants in a trial of this. They still have a few slots, if you are interested. You and your Little One will be part of the first control group.”

“We’ll do it,” Mike says with resolve that surprises himself. He can smell Erwin’s quiet but pleasant disbelief beside him. “She’s fertile enough to carry to term.”

“I have no doubts about that,” their vet says. “I’ll email you the packet, and forward your information to the clinic.”

Mike and Erwin talk to their felines in the bath that night. Nana’s glassy eyes look passed him as he describes the procedure of in vitro, how she will have hound embryos embedded inside of her, how they will grow properly unlike the half-breeds, how the pups will be born of her, how she will be their surrogate mother. 

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Erwin scritches behind one black ear, though she doesn’t acknowledge the touch. She’s disappearing before their eyes, grieving the losses of everything they’ve taken from her, resistant to the gift they want to give. Mike has no regrets. He knows his girl is strong enough to survive this, resilience embodied. She’s not dying, only heartbroken.

“You’ll have our pups, and they’ll be citizens, little one,” Erwin goes on. He gives Mike a look of disguised worry. Should they do this?

“We’ll be their parents,” Mike finally adds. Glassy eyes track him as he kneels down into her line of sight. “We don’t give them away.”

Nana’s ear twitches where Erwin scritches, and then Mike can smell a little bit of hope trickle from her gland. She blinks at him, meeting his gaze.

“They’ll live,” Mike promises. Simple words that must make all the difference to her, because for the first time in several weeks, she purrs.

-

Nana goes to the vet for a check-up and gets several injections. One is to kickstart breeding fever. She goes home with Mike and he wraps her up in her nest delicately, his nose on her throat to detect the changing scent. There’s a slow heat building in her abdomen, something that will evolve to be painfully intense and insatiable, something that she dreads as much as she welcomes. The vet explained that to make her body accept the embryos, it must be tricked into believing this is a natural conception. 

They travel to the south with haste that night, a last minute flight. Levi gets his own seat but Nana is registered as a lap neko, curled up in Mike’s lap, wrapped in his jacket. He keeps one large hand spanning her belly, kneading it, rubbing it, making her feel desperate through the entire flight.

They’re barely into Erwin’s room at Mister Henry’s home when the heat knocks her off her feet. The misery of abstinence from her previous fever is replaced now with the mind-blowing pleasure of knots and orgasm and the promise of life within her. She doesn’t try to hold onto consciousness. She lets the dreaminess carry her away.

They’re back home in the north when the fever recedes and she comes back to her mind in earnest. She aches from being fucked relentlessly, and deeper down, the heat of breeding has settled into a warm womb that feels heavy with blood, heavy with growing life. Levi curls around her, his hands serving as guardians over her abdomen, possessive in his own way. They will be his pups, too, in a way of shared responsibility. And Levi makes sure to bring her food and water every other hour, small snacks for a tender stomach that’s been starving from grief for months. The words aren’t in his mouth but in his worried scent, in his eyes.  _ You need to gain weight. _

Weekly, she sees the vet. She overhears from Erwin that the costs of this pregnancy are being covered by the researching organisation, eager to find a way for hounds to reproduce with fewer disturbances to their lives, pushing off the trials of childbearing onto feline bodies instead. 

A sickness more consuming than anything she’s ever felt overtakes her. It feels like she will die bending over the toilet to vomit, but her mates just rub her back and tell her that it will pass soon. No wonder, she thinks, that they would push this off. But the sunlight breaks and the sickness clears and she feels better again. Feels even better when the vet looks inside her womb to measure the growth of her pup. “It’ll be a big one,” Erwin smiles, kissing her forehead. 

Every week now, the pup is measured and checked for abnormalities. The vet updates them on the other nekos in the trial, how many are still carrying their offspring, how many have lost theirs. Nana doesn’t need to worry about that. Hers is exceptionally healthy, hers is growing and developing just perfectly. Hers will  _ live _ . 

-

The pup is born at home in their bed, the vet nearby and documenting. Mike sits beside his little one, her labour a vigorous effort, smooth and quicker than expected. Their pup comes in the early golden light of sunrise, a big boy with blonde hair like his two biological fathers. Nana reaches down and pulls him up to her chest with a cathartic cry, filling their bedroom with the alluring scent of pure oxytocin and happiness. 

“That’s it,” Mike encourages as she licks the pup’s face. He leans in and sniffs, burning his son’s smell into his memory, all paternal instinct. On Nana’s other side, Erwin does the same. The pup squirms and roots around for Nana’s breast, finding it and mouth at it. Led by instinct, Nana guides him to nurse, and he latched on, hungry. 

The vet lets neko mother and hound pup bond for several hours before taking the sleeping bundle and doing diagnostics. It’s hard to believe a tiny thing like Nana’s produced a forty-five hundred gram baby. 

“We knew he’d be big, because he’s made from your gamete and Erwin’s stem cell,” the vet laughs with them. “Congratulations. He’ll live.”

-

That night, their home quiet and brimming with adoration, Mike watches from the doorway to the bedroom, Levi bonding with the pup while Nana rests. Erwin comes up beside him and leans his head against Mike’s shoulder. 

“This is what she needed,” Mike murmurs as Levi strokes a finger down the newborn’s cheek. “This will keep her under control.”

Erwin hums his agreement. “We almost had to take Levi’s life to get him to surrender. It’s ironic that for little one, we had to give her a life.”

“It’s for their own good. And finally, they’re all ours now,” Mike says, and puts an arm around Erwin’s shoulders, pulling him close. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading <3


End file.
